Myanmar Army clears itself of blame over Rohingya violence

The Myanmar army has cleared itself of blame concerning the Rohingya crisis after releasing the results of an internal investigation.

The organisation Amnesty International has described the report as a ‘whitewash’.

The report denied the Myanmar Army killed any Rohingya people, raping their women, burning villages and stealing possessions.

Over half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes. Source: Google

The report comes as a reaction to the UN’s statement that the ongoing Rohingya crisis was “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

More than half a million from the stateless and primarily Muslim Rohingya minority have fled the Northern Rakhine state of Myanmar (Burma) into neighbouring Bangladesh since August, making it the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

Refugees have fled destruction in the northern Rakhine province .

Many who reached Bangladesh reported their homes and villages being burned and attacks by Burmese troops.

The army has now contradicted these claims, stating in a lengthy post on Facebook:

“According to the answers of 2,817 villagers from 54 Bengali villages in interviews and confessions of 362 villagers from 105 Bengali villages, security forces did not commit shooting at innocent villagers and sexual violence and rape cases against women.”

“They did not arrest, beat and kill the villagers.”

“They did not totally destroy, rob and take property”

“They did not threaten, bully and drive out the villagers not to be able to live in the villages and the did not set fire to the houses.”

An image of the Taung Paw camp in Rakhine State, Burma Source: Google

It also stated that Rohingya terrorist groups were responsible for the attacks on villages.

Rohingya Muslims represent the largest percent of Muslims in Myanmar however the predominantly Buddhist government of the country denied them official citizenship, and refused to recognise them in their 2014 census.